Predicting the Long-Term Future – 2043, 2118, and 2218

The team at Fast Future have been doing an exercise to envisage scenarios of what our world might look 25, 100, and 200 years into the future. Here are the outcomes. We’d welcome your thoughts on these scenarios, and your own views on how our world might play out.

2043: How the world might look in 25 years Artificial living – artificial intelligence (AI) will permeate our world. The technology will be in use across every aspect of society from healthcare and education to entertainment and financial services. Smart systems could manage our social lives, help us select the ideal partners for dating, marriage, and reproduction, monitor our health in liaison with our doctors, and personalise our education so content is delivered in the way we learn best. The technology will be making legal decisions in court, determining our benefit payments, fact checking politicians, and powering the transport sector.

Smarter money – By combining the power of AI and blockchain, the concept of money could evolve into electronic tokens with far more types of assets tradeable within the one “currency”. For example, we might earn tokens from our employment, as rewards from retailers and airlines, and as micro-credits for completing workplace training or school learning tasks. Instead of simply liking a track from a musician, we could now make a micro-payment to them with a fraction of a token. This evolution from cash and cryptocurrencies towards a universal means of exchange could mean the end of cash and foreign exchange markets.Rohit Talwar, CEO, Fast FutureAutonomous city centers – Following a widely invoked policy to ban petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles from city centers, the same happened with manually driven cars. An era marked by exponential change has seen changing ideas of asset ownership, radical leaps forward in AI, increasingly efficient electric propulsion units for vehicles, and the emergence of smart city infrastructures. These relatively smooth transitions led to other changes in cities, including the removal of redundant traffic signals and the remodelling of some street intersections.

Autonomous cargo aircraft – While most passengers are sceptical about an autonomous plane ride to their destination in the sun, cargo has no such qualms. While regulations allow the operation of autonomous aircraft for cargo purposes, they are still operated between specialist cargo hub airports, separate from passenger traffic.Autonomous commuter trains – Overground and subway / metro commuter services are now fully automated in many cities. At busier stations and at peak travel times, train staff supervise the safety of passengers at the station, but the trains themselves are fully autonomous with AI systems driving the train and monitoring passengers. As yet, long distance express trains retain on board crews, although much like civilian aircraft, the drivers’ roles are to supervise the systems and provide on board customer service.

The first 3D printed Moonbase – Following a series of missions to create an autonomous 3D accommodation manufacturing facility on the Moon’s surface, the facility is now ready. The Moonbase will support greater and more extensive autonomous and human exploration of the Moon’s surface and serve as a base for onward missions to deep space.Steve Wells, COO, Fast FutureFood revolution – Within next 25 year every aspect of the life we know will change. The way we produce our food will change. Fruits and vegetables might be grown in buildings controlled by AI rather than on farms, meat could be cloned, and we might see widespread consumption of 3D printed food.

Asia rising – Looking at the development of the Asian market, is reasonable to expect that within 25 years world economic and industrial leadership will have passed to China and India. The growth of China and other Asian economies will continue to outstrip more developed nations as see Asian nations as the driving force of the world economy rather than the USA and European countries.Karolina Dolatowska, Researcher, Fast FutureAgricultural disruption – The food chain will undergo a major transformation led by AI, vertical farming and lab grown meat. Hydroponics plants, fruits, and vegetable might change agriculture as we know it, and help revolutionize the food industry. Overpopulation is having major consequences, driving a lack of growing space and food in many parts of the world. The growing global population will force us to find creative solutions. Having AI-controlled hydroponic vertical farms on the sides of buildings might be one of the solutions.

Artificial meat – In-vitro cloned meat could be another future solution to our food supply problems. While lab grown meat may still face many challenges, such as flavour control, it also has many advantages such as less waste, less risk of viruses, reduced space requirements, and lower emissions and environmental impacts among others. These benefits seem to outweigh the disadvantages and drawback of traditionally reared livestock. The idea of artificial meat might disturb us, nonetheless this solution seems to be finding its way into our diets.Helena Calle, Researcher, Fast FutureWater innovation – As climate change continues to alter rainfall patterns worldwide, water may become an increasingly scarce resource. Regions with the financial capital may be able to invest in the latest microfiltration technologies, thus allowing constant recycling of waste water into drinkable water. Desalination plants may be the solution in arid regions along coastlines. Hopefully, as technology improves, and costs fall, the issues associated with desalination, namely high energy usage and residual salt, could be resolved to such a degree that coastal regions all over the world would be able to afford desalination.April Koury, Researcher, Fast Future

Artificial wombs – within the next 25 years it may be possible to prevent preterm mortality in infants by use of artificial wombs that provide all the conditions required to safely achieve full development and birth of a foetus. This technology would at first be used to save at-risk pregnancies but may over time become a reproductive technology available to consumers interested in having a baby without pregnancy.

Antibiotic failure – Many pathogens are gaining immunity to the antibiotic medicines available today. Without antibiotics, common illness and medical procedures, even pregnancy and childbirth, could become endangering events. In the next 25 years, is it possible that we will experience “the end of antibiotics” (as the World Health Organization put it in 2016)? Fortunately, the microbial threat is being met with advanced drug development, allowing medical researchers to explore new approaches to fight superbugs. New strategies on the horizon range from genetic modification of germs and implantable semiconductors through to the discovery of new antibacterial agents in soil.Alexandra Whittington, Foresight Director, Fast Future

2118: How the world might look in 100 years
The world has been transformed by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the emergence of artificial superintelligence (ASI), and the reworking of economic and financial systems using distributed technologies such as blockchain. The majority of people now work on a voluntary basis as all their basic needs are catered for by guaranteed incomes and free universal services such as transport, food, education, and utilities. Old notions such as government have been replaced by community decision making and the community at large now owns the intellectual property for all new advances in science and technology. The community is also a 50% shareholder in every business, with the returns reinvested based on priorities set by the community. You can still work if you want to – but no one has a job, we just play various roles in society, and self-organisation by activities is the way most things get done.

Society leads a far more balanced existence on the planet – only using what we need, managing our resources more sustainably. The focus of education is on maximising the individual’s talents and potential, and with lifespans of 150 years or more now routine, there is plenty of time to try our hand at everything we’d like to do. Wealth has been redistributed with a maximum multiple of ten between the assets of the richest and poorest, but most assets are in public ownership. Education centres such as schools, colleges, and universities have become the gathering centre for the community, where anyone can attend free courses, run 24/7/365 and delivered by anyone who has something to say – either in presence or via a variety of electronic delivery services.Rohit Talwar, CEO, Fast Future

“A world divided between abundance and automation – where technology has been deployed for the good of society; where products and services are basically free across a numbers of linked nation states and trading / political blocks with reasonably successfully harmonised taxation and regulatory systems – and the rest; states initially side-lined as politically and economically incompatible and a number of disparate nation states struggling to make the transition to the “modern” world, and a source of unrest within their own borders and internationally, have basically divided the world in two.

Colonies on the Moon and Mars are beginning to thrive with corporate governance. Given the colonisation – initially through a moon base staging post to Mars – was established by the private sector rather than the state players involved in the 1960’s and 70’s space race, there was little that governments on earth could do other than hang onto their coat tails as the technology developed came through company R&D activities. Both the Moon and Mars became staging posts for autonomous missions deep into the solar system as the search and commercialisation of other planets gathers pace.”Steve Wells, COO, Fast Future

2218: How the world might look in 200 years
“In 2218 the natural systems of the earth could be well on their way to rebounding from the brink of collapse. If today’s decision-makers choose to put resources toward avoiding ecological collapse (including strict adherence to carbon policies, and full support for development of renewable energy), the world of 2218 might be a more healthy and balanced place where life can be supported for hundreds of years to come. Some scientists, including the late Stephen Hawking, warn that we have 100 years of life left on this planet. Instead of exacerbating the issues for another 100 years, we could solve the problems we have created on earth which threaten life as we know it. If we take that advice today, and begin repairing things now, we may have a very desirable, functional and safe ecosystem for future generations to enjoy. If we do not, I doubt there will be much to see in 2218”Alexandra Whittington, Foresight Director, Fast Future

Earth has become part of the Inter-Galactic Federation of Planets (IGFP). The period from 2020-2050 saw a series of inter-related and cascading collapses of the economic, trade, financial, political, environmental, and social systems that had previously steered growth and progress. Advances in technologies such as AI had only served to accelerate dysfunctionality and wealth disparity. After the chaos of systemic failure, the planet gradually moved to adopt open, fairer, and more ecologically sound governance practices. As Earth started to establish a new equilibrium, so members of the IGFP started to make contact and introduce us to their values, ways of life, and advanced science and technology. Earth finally joined the IGFP in 2120 after a prolonged period of transition and adjustment.

In 2018, the New Earth now pursues an ecologically sound path and stewardship of the planet is a core part of the education curriculum alongside community engagement and civic responsibility. Abundance has become a reality, money no longer exists as a means of exchange, but citizens can accumulate credits for their acts of learning and service. Credits can be traded for the rights to visit the most distant of planets or to work on the most community focused initiatives. Manufacturing of goods is largely in the hands of technology, and ownership has been replaced by usership, with sharing a key organising principle across society. Everyone can have a say on every issue, and an elected IGFP governance council serves strict two year time limits to steward through the choices made by citizens.Rohit Talwar, CEO, Fast Future

Let’s face it, we all have daydreamed of sitting in a cockpit and roaming the wild, blue yonder. It’s hard to find someone who wouldn’t have been fascinated by aviation at some point in their life. But for all the gratification that flying brings with it, no one can deny that it is also in equal measure, a dangerous thing. Now, for the number of moving parts that make up an aircraft, it is a surprisingly efficient and safe machine. The incredibly high standard to which an aircraft is made and maintained ensures that failure rates become a statistical improbability. No, the real weak link in the chain isn’t a plane’s hydraulics or engines or control surfaces as one might expect, but is in fact the pilot itself.

Current studies point that pilot error accounts for a staggering 85% of all aviation accidents. And while accident rates in commercial aviation have decreased over the past few years, in general, they have remained mostly the same. Accidents in personal flight have actually gone up by 20% in the last decade.

Augmented Reality in General Aviation

With all the numbers, it’s easy to just point the finger at pilots and say they didn’t do their job right. But there is more to it than just that. Richard Collins in his article – Was it Really Pilot Error – Or Was it Something Else? sums up the real problem here very succinctly – “Pilots don’t err on purpose, though, they err because they don’t know better.”

Anyone who has flown (or has even tried out a desktop flight simulator) will tell you that flying ain’t easy. Even a glancing look at the controls of a Cessna 172 can confound a student pilot, let alone those of a Boeing 737 which consists of hundreds of switches and dials.

Pilots need to consider a lot of information before making the simplest of decisions and small errors have a way of snowballing out of control. Reading instruments, terrain, and weather to make decisions can get very tedious very fast. Being a pilot myself, I know at first hand how dangerous such a scenario can be.

This is where Augmented Reality (AR) steps in. The problem of pilot error isn’t so much as information not being available, but rather, too much information presented all the time that can lead to analysis paralysis. With AR applications, timely relevant information can be presented to the pilot when it is needed in an intuitive format, so that they can focus on the task at hand.

The idea of using AR in aviation isn’t so far fetched either, in fact, it has already been successfully implemented. Today, every fourth generation onwards fighter jet comes with a standard issue Heads Up Display (HUD) that displays critical navigational, flight, targeting, and mission related information on a piece of glass in front of the pilot. The idea is to ensure the pilot need not keep looking down at the instruments while in the heat of the battle. The fifth generation F-35 Lightning 2 has taken this concept even further by installing a complete AR package within the pilot’s helmet, giving them unprecedented 360 degree situational awareness and even see-thru ability.

Now, while most technologies typically trickle down from military applications to consumer markets, startups such as Aero Glass are also disrupting the traditional aviation landscape. Today, thanks to falling hardware prices and advancements in visualization technologies, AR is finally ready to make its appearance in commercial flying as well, a development that is long overdue. Many car models from Audi, BMW and Toyota have HUDs and it’s easy to find third party add ons for regular cars as well, so it’s definitely due for flight systems.

How AR Can Help Pilots

As stated before, the primary utility of AR in aviation is its ability to overlay relevant information on demand. Today’s AR systems can visualize terrain, navigation, air-traffic, instrument, weather, and airspace information in a 360-degree, 3D overlay that is easy to understand. Here are a few ways in which AR can assist a pilot. The following are shots from a working Aero Glass prototype in action.

AR runway markers can guide pilots during taxiing and taking off.

So, let’s say a pilot is getting ready to taxi. Their AR HMD can create a virtual checklist that can help them with their pre-flight checks. Once the check is complete, the HMD can display runway information and guide the pilot to their designated runway. The pilot can even be alerted of other aircraft that are taxiing/landing/taking off.

AR overlays and instructions can be superimposed on runways to make landings easier.

Likewise, when the pilot is getting ready to take off or land, the AR system can display a simple corridor overlay to show the appropriate path. This is particularly useful as taking off and landings are the riskiest part of flying. As pilots are closer to the ground, any emergency needs to be addressed quickly. By telling a pilot exactly what needs to be done, an AR system can negate oversights making take-offs and landings simpler and safer.

A corridor overlay can let pilots know when they are going off course.

Finally, an AR system can prove very handy during the cruise phase of the flight as well. Important information including artificial horizons, waypoints, weather updates, flight plans, restricted areas and terrain information can be displayed to provide complete situational awareness.

The display can be customized to a pilot’s preferences and modes can be turned on and off as well. It’s worth noting that a very high degree of precision is required to make this work and even the slightest different in overlay can have drastic (and potentially fatal) consequences.

Check out the below video to see a working Aero Glass prototype in action:

AR Use Cases Beyond Piloting

While the above mentioned uses of AR are quite obvious and well tested, the technology presents opportunities elsewhere as well. Maintenance Repair and Operations (MRO) are another area that can benefit greatly from AR. Training and licensing a technician can be very expensive and time consuming. In the U.S.A., it can take up to 8 years for a maintenance professional to become fully licensed primarily because training is usually hands-on and getting access to equipment can be tough at times.

AR, VR, and Mixed Reality are already proving to be invaluable here. By creating virtual replicas of the actual components, technicians can practice their skills in a safe environment as many times as needed. They can place their hands on virtual parts and work with them just as they would on the real thing. AR/VR based instructions can reduce the amount of time and money required to train a professional, while making training completely accident-free.

An AR follow-me car can guide a driver to their destination.

Likewise while HUDs are making appearances in automobiles, they are barely scratching the surface of what’s possible. Wearable AR systems can provide 360-degree situational awareness to drivers just like pilots and help them drive safer. Landmarks, navigational information, and hazards, can all be displayed in front of a driver’s line of sight so that they don’t need to keep taking their eyes off the road.

Some people are of the opinion that automation is the future of both general and military aviation. Autopilot and sensor technology are no doubt making great strides and they will make the skies safer. That being said, technology won’t be replacing the humble pilots anytime soon, error prone as they might be.

Take for instance the case of Flight 1549 (the flight the movie Sully is based on). Heading from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina, the plane experienced a bird strike just 3 minutes after take off which took out both the engines. Finding that he couldn’t turn back, nor could they make it to New Jersey’s Teterboro airport, the pilot decided to ditch the plane in the Hudson river, which he successfully did saving all the 155 people onboard. Now known as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” the incident is a reminder that the human element cannot be overlooked as machines cannot make decisions of such nature.

Augmented reality applications such as those being developed by Aero Glass will help pilots of the future avoid costly mistakes and make timely decisions that will save lives. While the technology is still under development, it goes without saying that the enhancements to safety they bring are well worth the time.

Disclosure: This is a guest post by an actual pilot named Ákos Maróy; he is also the founder of Aero Glass. The content in this article was not produced by the UploadVR staff, but was edited for grammar and flow. No compensation was exchanged for the creation of this content.

“Virtual worlds are going to be one of the first killer apps for blockchains and perhaps the deepest users of them.” – Fred Ehrsam, Co-Founder, Coinbase

Christian Lemmerz, a German-Danish sculptor who normally carves his subjects into marble, currently has his latest work on display in Venice, Italy. “La Apparizione,” a towering golden image of a crucified Jesus Christ, won’t be found sitting on a pedestal, however, because this is a work of virtual reality art.

That means viewers attending the exhibit are first made to stand in an empty room where they are placed inside a VR headset display. Only once the headset is on do they see the floating, pulsing Jesus hovering before them.

Lemmerz’s statue is also for sale, and with only five editions of the piece now released, each one costs around $100,000. That may be an expensive price tag for a piece of software, but not out of line for a high-end work of art.

In theory, this work could also be hacked, stolen, endlessly copied, and distributed online. Art forgery, a practice that dates back at least 2,000 years, presents a unique set of challenges for the industry when the art itself is made from lines of code. It’s likely that Lemmerz would not appreciate if forgeries of his work soon poured out from file-sharing sites like Pirate Bay.

Since the price of art depends on scarcity and authenticity to preserve it’s value, how might the value of a prized digital work be protected?

One promising solution is blockchain technology.

In fact, blockchain may become the way we verify the legitimacy of almost any virtual asset, including currencies, identity, and the authenticity and ownership of virtual property. Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of the popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, has written that “virtual worlds are going to be one of the first killer apps for blockchains and perhaps the deepest users of them.”

In the case of verifying digital art like “La Apparizione,” using a blockchain is more straightforward. As I wrote in 2016, “blockchains are powerful for one reason: they solve the problem of proving that when someone sends you a digital “something” (like bitcoin, for example), they didn’t keep a copy for themselves, or send it to 20 other people.” Using a blockchain to buy and sell rare VR art is one way to validate that a particular work is indeed the original.

“Blockchains may be the best way to authenticate ownership of virtual property, or even establish and preserve someone’s identity.”

Ehrsam is pointing at an even deeper insight about the use of blockchains in virtual reality. As more companies, including Second Life developer Linden Lab, work to build the large-scale virtual worlds often compared to concepts like the “metaverse” from Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash or the OASIS in Ready Player One, blockchains may be the best way to authenticate ownership of virtual property, or even establish and preserve someone’s identity.

Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life and a new VR world called High Fidelity, posted an essay indicating his own enthusiasm for the way that blockchains may be useful in VR. High Fidelity is now launching a new cryptocurrency, called HFC, on a public blockchain that will be used, among other things, to verify the authenticity and ownership of virtual goods.

“If there was no concept of intellectual property in virtual worlds, there would be little motivation to create things, since your creations would immediately be re-used and re-distributed by others without agreement,” Rosedale tells Singularity Hub.

Rosedale says that content creators won’t be incentivized to create digital property if they cannot protect and profit from their work. And considering that buying and selling virtual property is already profitable for many virtual world users, it does seem like an aspect of virtual life many will want to protect.

In 2016 alone, the buying and selling of virtual goods and services between users in Second Life was $500 million—making its economy larger than the GDP of some small countries. Users exchange fashion accessories for their avatars and virtual furniture to decorate their online spaces, and artists like Lemmerz could reasonably seek out collectors and galleries willing to buy their work.

According to High Fidelity, the HFC blockchain will be used to ensure that virtual goods are the original by allowing creators to assign certificates to their work.

“Users will be able to register their creations on the blockchain so they can prove ownership of their designs. Next, when something is bought, a certificate will be issued on the blockchain proving that the new owner has a legitimate copy,” Rosedale says.

This system will serve a similar function as patents and trademarks in the real world. High Fidelity says they intend to create a process of review, similar to that conducted in many countries, to ensure that the registration of a digital certificate be granted to real original work that doesn’t infringe on earlier creations. Once assigned, the certificate cannot be canceled and will be insured on the HFC blockchain.

“Unverified goods could be dangerous, for example containing malicious scripts. Certified digital assets will be much more safe, just as with the App Store today,” Rosedale adds.

“If your assets are on a blockchain, no single operator of a world can take them from you. If your identity lives on the blockchain, you can’t be deleted,” Ehrsam writes.

Another major benefit blockchains offer, as Ehrsam points out, is that they prevent any single company or centralized intermediary from having the power to manipulate things. As depicted in Ready Player One, where a single oligarchic company owns and operates the servers that host the story’s virtual world, a single company hosting any virtual world could in theory exploit users in a variety of ways.

“If your assets are on a blockchain, no single operator of a world can take them from you. If your identity lives on the blockchain, you can’t be deleted,” Ehrsam writes.

Ehrsam’s key takeaway is insightful. He writes, “When you drill down, blockchains are really a shared version of reality everyone agrees on. So whether it’s a fully immersive VR experience, augmented reality, or even Bitcoin or Ethereum in the physical world as a shared ledger for our ‘real world,’ we’ll increasingly trust blockchains as our basis for reality.”

Since virtual reality is a public space constructed entirely of software, blockchains may prove useful and perhaps essential in providing a foundation for trust.

For more, High Fidelity also posted a followup post detailing the use of the HFC blockchain specifically for protecting intellectual property in virtual reality.

Aaron Frank is a writer and speaker and one of the earliest hires at Singularity University. Aaron is focused on the intersection of emerging technologies and accelerating change and is fascinated by the impact that both will have on business, society, and culture.

As a writer, his articles have appeared online in Vice’s Motherboard, Wired UK and Forbes. As a speaker, Aaron has lectured fo… Learn More

Sustainability is not enough; we need regenerative cultures

Sustainability alone is not an adequate goal. The word sustainability itself is inadequate, as it does not tell us what we are actually trying to sustain. In 2005, after spending two years working on my doctoral thesis on design for sustainability, I began to realize that what we are actually trying to sustain is the underlying pattern of health, resilience and adaptability that maintain this planet in a condition where life as a whole can flourish.Design for sustainability is, ultimately, design for human and planetary health (Wahl, 2006b).

A regenerative human culture is healthy, resilient and adaptable; it cares for the planet and it cares for life in the awareness that this is the most effective way to create a thriving future for all of humanity. The concept of resilience is closely related to health, as it describes the ability to recover basic vital functions and bounce back from any kind of temporary breakdown or crisis. When we aim for sustainability from a systemic perspective, we are trying to sustain the pattern that connects and strengthens the whole system. Sustainability is first and foremost about systemic health and resilience at different scales, from local, to regional and global.

Complexity science can teach us that as participants in a complex dynamic eco- psycho-social system that is subject to certain biophysical limits, our goal has to be appropriate participation, not prediction and control (Goodwin, 1999a). The best way to learn how to participate appropriately is to pay more attention to systemic relationships and interactions, to aim to support the resilience and health of the whole system, to foster diversity and redundancies at multiple scales, and to facilitate positive emergence through paying attention to the quality of connections and information flows in the system. This book explores how this might be done. [This is an excerpt of a subchapter from Designing Regenerative Cultures, published by Triarchy Press, 2016.]

Using the Precautionary Principle

One proposal for guiding wise action in the face of dynamic complexity and ‘not knowing’ is to apply the Precautionary Principle as a framework that aims to avoid, as far as possible, actions that will negatively impact on environmental and human health in the future. From the United Nation’s ‘World Charter for Nature’ in 1982, to the Montreal Protocol on Health in 1987, to the Rio Declaration in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol, and Rio+20 in 2012, we have committed to applying the Precautionary Principle over and over again.

The Wingspread Consensus Statement on the Precautionary Principle states: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically” (Wingspread Statement, 1998). The principle puts the burden of proof that a certain action is not harmful on those proposing and taking the action, yet general practice continues to allow all actions that have not (yet!) been proven to have potentially harmful effects to go ahead unscrutinized. In a nutshell, the Precautionary Principle can be summarized as follows: practice precaution in the face of uncertainty. This is not what we are doing.

While high-level UN groups and many national governments have repeatedly considered the Precautionary Principle as a wise way to guide actions, day-to-day practice shows that it is very hard to implement, as there will always be some degree of uncertainty. The Precautionary Principle could also potentially stop sustainable innovation and block potentially highly beneficial new technologies on the basis that it cannot be proven with certainty that these technologies will not result in unexpected future side-effects that could be detrimental to human or environmental health.

Why not challenge designers, technologists, policy-makers, and planning professionals to evaluate their proposed actions on their positive, life-sustaining, restorative and regenerative potential?

Why not limit the scale of implementation of any innovation to local and regional levels until proof of its positive impact is unequivocally demonstrated?

Aiming to design for systemic health may not save us from unexpected side-effects and uncertainty, but it offers a trial and error path towards a regenerative culture. We urgently need a Hippocratic Oath for design, technology and planning: do no harm! To make this ethical imperative operational we need a salutogenic (health generating) intention behind all design, technology and planning: We need to design for human, ecosystems and planetary health.This way we can move more swiftly from the unsustainable ‘business as usual’ to restorative and regenerative innovations that will support the transition towards a regenerative culture. Let us ask ourselves:

How do we create design, technology, planning and policy decisions that positively support human, community and environmental health?

We need to respond to the fact that human activity over the last centuries and millennia has done damage to healthy ecosystems functioning. Resource availability is declining globally, while demand is rising as the human population continues to expand and we continue to erode ecosystems functions through irresponsible design and lifestyles of unbridled consumption.

If we meet the challenge of decreasing demand and consumption globally while replenishing resources through regenerative design and technology, we have a chance of making it through the eye of the needle and creating a regenerative human civilization. This shift will entail a transformation of the material resource basis of our civilization, away from fossil resources and towards renewably regenerated biological resources, along with a radical increase in resource productivity and recycling. Bill Reed has mapped out some of the essential shifts that will be needed to create a truly regenerative culture.

“Instead of doing less damage to the environment, it is necessary to learn how we can participate with the environment — using the health of ecological systems as a basis for design. […] The shift from a fragmented worldview to a whole systems mental model is the significant leap our culture must make — framing and understanding living system interrelationships in an integrated way. A place-based approach is one way to achieve this understanding. […] Our role, as designers and stakeholders is to shift our relationship to one that creates a whole system of mutually beneficial relationships.” — Bill Reed (2007: 674)

Reed named ‘whole-systems thinking’ and ‘living-systems thinking’ as the foundations of the shift in mental model that we need to create a regenerative culture. In Chapters 3, 4 and 5, we will explore these necessary shifts in perspective in some detail. They go hand- in-hand with a radical reframing of our understanding of sustainability. As Bill Reed puts it: “Sustainability is a progression towards a functional awareness that all things are connected; that the systems of commerce, building, society, geology, and nature are really one system of integrated relationships; that these systems are co-participants in the evolution of life” (2007). Once we make this shift in perspective we can understand life as “a whole process of continuous evolution towards richer, more diverse, and mutually beneficial relationships”. Creating regenerative systems is not simply a technical, economic, ecological or social shift: it has to go hand-in-hand with an underlying shift in the way we think about ourselves, our relationships with each other and with life as a whole.

Figure 1 shows the different shifts in perspective as we move from ‘business as usual’ to creating a regenerative culture. The aim of creating regenerative cultures transcends and includes sustainability. Restorative design aims to restore healthy self-regulation to local ecosystems, and reconciliatory design takes the additional step of making explicit humanity’s participatory involvement in life’s processes and the unity of nature and culture. Regenerative design creates regenerative cultures capable of continuous learning and transformation in response to, and anticipation of, inevitable change. Regenerative cultures safeguard and grow biocultural abundance for future generations of humanity and for life as a whole.

Figure 1: Adapted from Reed (2006) with the author’s permission

The ‘story of separation’ is reaching the limits of its usefulness and the negative effects of the associated worldview and resulting behaviour are beginning to impact on life as a whole. By having become a threat to planetary health we are learning to rediscover our intimate relationship with all of life. Bill Reed’s vision of regenerative design for systemic health is in line with the pioneering work of people like Patrick Geddes, Aldo Leopold, Lewis Mumford, Buckminster Fuller, Ian McHarg, E.F. Schumacher, John Todd, John Tillman Lyle, David Orr, Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, and many others who have explored design in the context of the health of the whole system.

A new cultural narrative is emerging, capable of birthing and informing a truly regenerative human culture. We do not yet know all the details of how exactly this culture will manifest, nor do we know all the details of how we might get from the current ‘world in crisis’ situation to that thriving future of a regenerative culture. Yet aspects of this future are already with us.

In using the language of ‘old story’ and ‘new story’ we are in danger of thinking of this cultural transformation as a replacement of the old story by a new story. Such separation into dualistic opposites is in itself part of the ‘separation narrative’ of the ‘old story’. The ‘new story’ is not a complete negation of the currently dominant worldview. It includes this perspective but stops regarding it as the only perspective, opening up to the validity and necessity of multiple ways of knowing.

Embracing uncertainty and ambiguity makes us value multiple perspectives on our appropriate participation in complexity. These are perspectives that give value and validity not only to the ‘old story’ of separation, but also to the ‘ancient story’ of unity with the Earth and the cosmos. These are perspectives that may help us find a regenerative way of being human in deep intimacy, reciprocity and communion with life as a whole by becoming conscious co-creators of humanity’s ‘new story’.

Our impatience and urgency to jump to answers, solutions and conclusions too quickly is understandable in the face of increasing individual, collective, social, cultural and ecological suffering, but this tendency to favour answers rather than to deepen into the questions is in itself part of the old story of separation.

The art of transformative cultural innovation is to a large extent about making our peace with ‘not knowing’ and living into the questions more deeply, making sure we are asking the right questions, paying attention to our relationships and how we all bring forth a world not just through what we are doing, but through the quality of our being. A regenerative culture will emerge out of finding and living new ways of relating to self, community and to life as a whole. At the core of creating regenerative cultures is an invitation to live the questions together.

SOLUTIONS

Fuente> www.drawdown.org/solutions

The objective of the solutions list is to be inclusive, presenting an extensive array of impactful measures already in existence. The list is comprised primarily of “no regrets” solutions—actions that make sense to take regardless of their climate impact since they have intrinsic benefits to communities and economies. These initiatives improve lives, create jobs, restore the environment, enhance security, generate resilience, and advance human health.

In our book Drawdown, each solution is measured and modeled to determine its carbon impact through the year 2050, the total and net cost to society, and the total lifetime savings (or cost). The exception to this are our “Coming Attraction” solutions, which are a window into what is still emerging. For these solutions, we did not measure cost, savings, or atmospheric impact, but we illuminate technologies and concepts whose growth we will continue to watch.

Summary of Solutions by Overall Rank

This table provides the detailed results of the Plausible Scenario, which models the growth solutions on the Drawdown list based on a reasonable, but vigorous rate from 2020-2050. Results depicted represent a comparison to a reference case that assumes 2014 levels of adoption continue in proportion to the growth in global markets.

Every child begins their journey through life with an incredible potential: a creative mindset that approaches the world with curiosity, with questions, and with a desire to learn about the world and themselves through play.

However, this mindset is often eroded or even erased by conventional educational practices when young children enter school.

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking is often cited as an example of how children’s divergent thinking diminishes over time. 98% of children in kindergarten are “creative geniuses” – they can think of endless opportunities of how to use a paper clip.

This ability is reduced drastically as children go through the formal schooling system and by age 25, only 3% remain creative geniuses.

Most of us only come up with one or a handful of uses for a paperclip.

What is most concerning in connection with the human capital question is that over the last 25 years, the Torrance Test has shown a decrease in originality among young children (kindergarten to grade 3).

By the way, did you know you could combine six standard LEGO bricks in more than 915 million ways?

Wrong focus

The World Economic Forum has just released its Human Capital Report with the subtitle “Preparing People for the Future of Work”.

The report states that “many of today’s education systems are already disconnected from the skills needed to function in today’s labour markets”.

It goes on to underline how schools tend to focus primarily on developing children’s cognitive skills – or skills within more traditional subjects – rather than fostering skills like problem solving, creativity or collaboration.

This should be cause for concern when looking at the skill set required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity are the three most important skills a child needs to thrive, according to the Future of Jobs Report.

Let’s take a moment to underscore that creativity has jumped from 10th place to third place in just five years.

And that emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility have also entered the skills list for 2020.

Worryingly, these skills are often not featured prominently in children’s school day where the norm still is the chalk-and-talk teaching approach that has prevailed for centuries.

Child’s play

A study in New Zealand compared children who learned how to read at age five with those who learned at age seven.

When they were 11 years old, both sets of children displayed the same reading ability. But the children who only learned how to read at age seven actually showed a higher comprehension level.

One of the explanations is that they had more time to explore the world around them through play.

It is clear that preparing children for the future demands re-focusing concepts of learning and education.

Knowing how to read, write and do maths remain important for children to unlock the world in front of them.

An increasingly interconnected and dynamic world means children will find themselves changing jobs several times during their lives – switching to jobs that don’t exist today, and which they might have to invent themselves.

The question is how do we foster the above-mentioned breadth of skills, and keep alive the natural ability of children to learn throughout a lifetime – instead of eroding it when they enter formal schooling?

Achieving this is simpler than you might think: engaging children in positive, playful experiences.

Different forms of play provide children with the opportunity to develop social, emotional, physical and creative skills in addition to cognitive ones.

Lifelong play

If we agree on the urgent need for developing skills of complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity, it is essential that we recognise that these skills are built by learning through play across the lifespan.

As we invest in our children’s future, let’s be sure to guard against directed learning, “schoolification” or three-year-olds learning their alphabet and numbers in written form when there is no evidence that this will make them better readers.

We need to challenge ourselves on the logic of flashcards and homework for our youngest at home, and see the value of continuing to create joyful, meaningful play moments with our children.

The natural ability of children to learn through play may be the best-kept, low-cost secret for addressing the skills agenda with potential to equip both our children and our economies to thrive.

Plus, it’s fun. So, what’s stopping us? Let’s play!

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Written by

Mirjam Schöning, Head of Learning through Play in Early Childhood programme, The Lego Foundation

The U.S. dropped out of the top 10 in the 2018 Bloomberg Innovation Index for the first time in the six years the gauge has been compiled. South Korea and Sweden retained their No. 1 and No. 2 rankings.

The index scores countries using seven criteria, including research and development spending and concentration of high-tech public companies.

The U.S. fell to 11th place from ninth mainly because of an eight-spot slump in the post-secondary, or tertiary, education-efficiency category, which includes the share of new science and engineering graduates in the labor force. Value-added manufacturing also declined. Improvement in the productivity score couldn’t make up for the lost ground.

“I see no evidence to suggest that this trend will not continue,” said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C. “Other nations have responded with smart, well-funded innovation policies like better R&D tax incentives, more government funding for research, more funding for technology commercialization initiatives.”

Singapore jumped ahead of European economies Germany, Switzerland and Finland into third place on the strength of its top ranking in the tertiary-efficiency category.

“Singapore has always placed strong focus on educating her populace, especially in STEM disciplines,” said Yeo Kiat Seng, professor and associate provost at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, referring to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It also has a “steadfast commitment to funding R&D and innovation,” added Yeo, who holds 38 patents.

China moved up two spots to 19th, buoyed by its high proportion of new science and engineering graduates in the labor force and increasing number of patents by innovators such as Huawei Technologies Co.

“One common trait of the U.S., Korea and China is that people accept failure as part of the process,” said Prinn Panitchpakdi, country head of CLSA Thailand, an Asian brokerage and investment group. “Innovation lags in countries where the culture emphasizes risk avoidance and where R&D is seen purely an expense, not an investment. That’s the mindset in Thailand.” It dropped one spot from a year earlier, to 45th.

Top-Tier Countries

Japan, one of three Asian nations in the top 10, rose one slot to No. 6. France moved up to ninth from 11th, joining five other European economies in the top tier. Israel rounded out this group and was the only country to beat South Korea in the R&D category.

South Africa and Iran moved back into the top 50; the last time both were included was 2014. Turkey was one of the biggest gainers, jumping four spots to 33rd because of improvements in tertiary efficiency, productivity and two other categories.

The biggest losers were New Zealand and Ukraine, which each dropped four places. The productivity measure influenced New Zealand’s shift, while Ukraine was hurt by a lower tertiary-efficiency ranking.

Movements in this year’s list were generally less dramatic than last year, when Russia took a 14-spot tumble following sanctions related to Ukraine and the plunge in energy prices. In the current index, it moved up one spot to 25th.

The 2018 ranking process began with more than 200 economies. Each was scored on a 0-100 scale based on seven equally weighted categories. Nations that didn’t report data for at least six categories were eliminated, trimming the list to 80. Bloomberg released the top 50 and category scores within this cohort. For additional data, click here.